Shigeru Miyamoto

is a Japanese video game designer, producer, game director and filmmaker at Nintendo, where he has served as one of its representative directors as an executive since 2002. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in video games, he is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises of all time, including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. More than 1 billion copies of games featuring franchises created by Miyamoto have been sold.

Born in Sonobe, Kyoto, Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts. He originally sought a career as a manga artist, until developing an interest in video games. With the help of his father, he joined Nintendo in 1977 after impressing the president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, with his toys.

Early life

left|thumb|Miyamoto graduated from [[Kanazawa College of Art in Ishikawa Prefecture.]]

Miyamoto was born on November 16, 1952, in the Japanese town of Sonobe, Kyoto Prefecture. His parents were of "modest means", and his father taught English. He was influenced by manga's classic kishōtenketsu narrative structure, as well as Western genre television shows. He was inspired to enter the video game industry by the 1978 arcade hit Space Invaders.

Career

1977–1984: Arcade beginnings and Donkey Kong

In the 1970s, Nintendo was a relatively small Japanese company that sold playing cards and other novelties, although it had started to branch out into toys and games in the 1960s. Through a mutual friend, Miyamoto's father arranged an interview with Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. After showing some of his toy creations, he was hired in 1977 as an apprentice in the planning department. He first helped the company develop a game after the 1980 release Radar Scope. The game achieved moderate success in Japan, but by 1981, Nintendo's efforts to break it into the North American video game market had failed, leaving them with a large number of unsold units and on the verge of financial collapse. Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to convert unsold Radar Scope units into a new arcade game. He tasked Miyamoto with the conversion, Nintendo's head engineer, Gunpei Yokoi, supervised the project. In his next game, he gave Mario a brother: Luigi. He named the new game Mario Bros. Yokoi convinced Miyamoto to give Mario some superhuman abilities, namely the ability to fall from any height unharmed. Mario's appearance in Donkey Kong—overalls, a hat, and a thick mustache—led Miyamoto to change aspects of the game to make Mario look like a plumber rather than a carpenter. Miyamoto felt that New York City provided the best setting for the game, with its "labyrinthine subterranean network of sewage pipes". To date, games in the Mario Bros. franchise have been released for more than a dozen platforms. Shortly after, Miyamoto also worked the character sprites and game design for the Baseball, Tennis, and Golf games on the NES.

1985–1989: NES/Famicom, Super Mario Bros., and The Legend of Zelda

thumb|right|Miyamoto's Super Mario Bros. was bundled with the [[Nintendo Entertainment System|NES in America. The game and the system are credited with helping to bring North America out of the slump of the 1983 game industry crash.]]

As Nintendo released its first home video game console, the Family Computer (rereleased in North America as the Nintendo Entertainment System), Miyamoto made two of the most popular titles for the console and in the history of video games as a whole: Super Mario Bros. (a sequel to Mario Bros.) and The Legend of Zelda (an entirely original title).

In both games, Miyamoto decided to focus more on gameplay than on high scores, unlike many games of the time. Super Mario Bros. largely took a linear approach, with the player traversing the stage by running, jumping, and dodging or defeating enemies. It was a culmination of Miyamoto's gameplay concepts and technical knowledge drawn from his experiences of designing Donkey Kong, Mario Bros, Devil World (1984), the side-scrolling racing game Excitebike (1984), and the 1985 NES port of side-scrolling beat 'em up Kung-Fu Master (1984). This culminated in his concept of a platformer set in an expansive world that would have the player "strategize while scrolling sideways" over long distances, have aboveground and underground levels, and have colorful backgrounds rather than black backgrounds.

By contrast, Miyamoto employed nonlinear gameplay in The Legend of Zelda, forcing the player to think their way through riddles and puzzles. The world was expansive and seemingly endless, offering "an array of choice and depth never seen before in a video game."

Miyamoto worked on various other different games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, including Ice Climber and Kid Icarus. He also worked on sequels to both Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda. Super Mario Bros. 2, released only in Japan at the time, reuses gameplay elements from Super Mario Bros., though the game is much more difficult than its predecessor. Nintendo of America disliked Super Mario Bros. 2, which they found to be frustratingly difficult and otherwise little more than a modification of Super Mario Bros. Rather than risk the franchise's popularity, they canceled its stateside release and looked for an alternative. They realized they already had one option in Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic (Dream Factory: Heart-Pounding Panic), also designed by Miyamoto. This game was reworked and released as Super Mario Bros. 2 (not to be confused with the Japanese game of the same name) in North America and Europe. The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was eventually released in North America as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels.

The successor to The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, bears little resemblance to the first game in the series. The Adventure of Link features side-scrolling areas within a larger world map rather than the bird's eye view of the previous title. The game incorporates a strategic combat system and more RPG elements, including an experience points (EXP) system, magic spells, and more interaction with non-player characters (NPCs). Link has extra lives; no other game in the series includes this feature. The Adventure of Link plays out in a two-mode dynamic. The overworld, the area where the majority of the action occurs in other The Legend of Zelda games, is still from a top-down perspective, but it now serves as a hub to the other areas. Whenever Link enters a new area such as a town, the game switches to a side-scrolling view. These separate methods of traveling and entering combat are one of many aspects adapted from the role-playing genre.

Soon after, Super Mario Bros. 3 was developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development; the game took more than two years to complete. The game offers numerous modifications on the original Super Mario Bros., ranging from costumes with different abilities to new enemies. Bowser's children were designed to be unique in appearance and personality; Miyamoto based the characters on seven of his programmers as a tribute to their work on the game. Miyamoto worked through various games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, one of them Star Fox. For the game, programmer Jez San convinced Nintendo to develop an upgrade for the Super Nintendo, allowing it to handle three-dimensional graphics better: the Super FX chip. Using this new hardware, Miyamoto and Katsuya Eguchi designed the Star Fox game with an early implementation of three-dimensional graphics.

Miyamoto produced two major Mario games for the system. The first, Super Mario World, was a launch game. It features an overworld as in Super Mario Bros. 3 and introduces a new character, Yoshi, who appears in many other Nintendo games. The second Mario game for the system, Super Mario RPG, went in a somewhat different direction. Miyamoto led a team consisting of a partnership between Nintendo and Square; it took nearly a year to develop the graphics. The story takes place in a newly rendered Mushroom Kingdom based on the Super Mario Bros. series.

Miyamoto also created The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the third entry in the series. Dropping the side-scrolling elements of its predecessor, A Link to the Past introduced to the series elements that are still commonplace today, such as the concept of an alternate or parallel world, the Master Sword, and other new weapons and items.

Shigeru Miyamoto mentored Satoshi Tajiri, guiding him during the creation process of Pocket Monsters: Red and Green (released in English as Pokémon Red and Blue), the initial video games in the Pokémon series. He also acted as the producer for these games and worked on social gameplay concepts such as trading. Pokémon would go on to be one of the most popular entertainment franchises in the world, spanning video games, anime, and various other merchandise.

Miyamoto made several games for the Nintendo 64, mostly from his previous franchises. His first game on the new system, and one of its launch games, is Super Mario 64, for which he was the principal director. In developing the game, he began with character design and the camera system. Miyamoto and the other designers were initially unsure of which direction the game should take, and spent months to select an appropriate camera view and layout. The original concept involved a fixed path much like an isometric-type game, before the choice was made to settle on a free-roaming 3D design. Its engine was based on that of Super Mario 64 but was so heavily modified as to be a somewhat different engine. Individual parts of Ocarina of Time were handled by multiple directors—a new strategy for Nintendo EAD. However, when things progressed slower than expected, Miyamoto returned to the development team with a more central role assisted in public by interpreter Bill Trinen. The team was new to 3D games, but assistant director Makoto Miyanaga recalls a sense of "passion for creating something new and unprecedented". Miyamoto went on to produce a sequel to Ocarina of Time, known as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. By reusing the game engine and graphics from Ocarina of Time, a smaller team required only 18 months to finish Majora's Mask.

Miyamoto worked on a variety of Mario series spin-offs for the Nintendo 64, including Mario Kart 64 and Mario Party.

2000–2011: GameCube, Wii, and DS

thumb|Miyamoto holding up a [[Wii Remote at E3 2006]]

Miyamoto produced various games for the GameCube, including the launch game Luigi's Mansion. The game was first revealed at Nintendo Space World 2000 as a technical demo designed to show off the graphical capabilities of the GameCube. Miyamoto made an original short demo of the game concepts, and Nintendo decided to turn it into a full game. Luigi's Mansion was later shown at E3 2001 with the GameCube console. Miyamoto continued to make additional Mario spinoffs in these years. He also produced the 3D game series Metroid Prime, after the original designer Yokoi, a friend and mentor of Miyamoto's, died. In this time he developed Pikmin and its sequel Pikmin 2, based on his experiences gardening. With the help of Hideo Kojima, he guided the developers of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. He helped with many games on the Nintendo DS, including the remake of Super Mario 64, titled Super Mario 64 DS, and the new game Nintendogs, a new franchise based on his own experiences with dogs. At E3 2005, Miyamoto showed off Nintendogs with Tina Wood, where he promised to show her "a few more tricks" backstage.

Miyamoto played a major role in the development of the Wii, a console that popularized motion control gaming, and its launch game Wii Sports, which helped show the capability of the new control scheme. Miyamoto went on to produce other titles in the Wii series, including Wii Fit. His inspiration for Wii Fit was to encourage conversation and family bonding. New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Super Mario Galaxy 2.

2011–present: Wii U, 3DS, Switch and other projects

Unlike in the 2000s, during which he was involved in many projects as producer, Miyamoto's activities in development were less pronounced in that decade with Miyamoto only producing Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and Star Fox Zero. Otherwise, Miyamoto was credited as General Producer, Executive Producer and Supervisor for most projects, which are positions with much less involvement in comparison to a producer.

Following the death of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata in July 2015, Miyamoto was appointed as an acting Representative Director, alongside Genyo Takeda. He was relieved of this position in September 2015 when Tatsumi Kimishima assumed the role of the company's president. He was also appointed the position of "Creative Fellow" at the same time, providing expert advice to Kimishima as a "support network" alongside Takeda. In his capacity as Creative Fellow, he provides feedback and guidance to game directors during development.

In 2018, it was announced that Miyamoto would be working as a producer on The Super Mario Bros. Movie based on the Mario franchise by Illumination.

Miyamoto was heavily involved with the design and construction of Super Nintendo World, a themed area featured at Universal Studios Japan, Universal Studios Hollywood, and Universal Epic Universe and under construction at Universal Studios Singapore. Miyamoto oversaw the design and construction of the land and its attractions and acted as Nintendo's public representative on the land, hosting several promotional materials including a December 2020 Nintendo Direct in which he gave a tour of parts of the land.